That a full stop signifies the end of the sentence is what we have all learnt. Little would have anyone imagined that a full stop, a dot, rather, can also be used in the middle like in “name.com”. Advancements in technology now lead to the Internet where the websites are named with .net, .com, .edu and so on.
With the advent of computers, apart from the “plus” and “minus” signs, the asterisk (*) was used to denote multiplication and the slash (/) for division. One cannot imagine with what idea did the genius Henry Mill, the inventor of the typewriter, included the back slash () in the keyboard in 1714. In the pre-Windows era of computers, the backslash was the character that allowed one to enter into a DOS environment. Later on, the names of the websites were also shown as http:\.
Hyphenated words have disappeared but the hyphen or dash hasn’t. Where a hyphen can’t be used, the underscore (_) does the job perfectly, just making a minimal change from the original name in a mail ID and fitting in anywhere between letters. The hash (#) which was originally a number sign is now widely used in Twitter. In mobiles, it is used to switch between profiles.
Only a person with a sound knowledge of English language could intelligently use a semi-colon. As the quality of language has deteriorated due to truncated versions of words and phrases, the semi-colon that should have died by now has surprisingly survived in another form. It is used to separate the mail IDs and also between two mobile numbers while sending group messages. The ampersand (&), the symbol which in itself looks as majestic as its name, is now used to represent a string. While writing this symbol, many people still do not know from where to start and where to end. The lazy ones just write an “s” and cross it. The ampersand signifies various things in computer programmes.
To top them all, @ is now the most commonly used logogram. This usually signifies “at the rate of”—the one that separates the unique mail ID and the website. In the early days of the Internet and email, it was common to hear people say “at the rate of yahoo.com” because they were used to saying it only in that way. Two decades ago, many found it difficult to follow the curve after the “a” and simply wrote the alphabet and circled it.
The technocrats would have felt that these almost unused characters could be put to better use as the alphabets & numerals are all often used. These special characters have now become an integral part of our life. The characters have taken a new avatar and the technocrats have to be patted on their back for having infused new life into them. Otherwise, the technological advancements would have rendered these characters and logograms redundant.